The Portal

The house wraps around in 'J' shape and so we have this little protected courtyard.  The water damage all around the house was a big problem.  My husband and our good friend Preacher built a beautiful portal we used 8x8 lumber for posts and Preach scorped them creating a nice texture on the wood.  He used a coopers knife that is a 'U' shaped knife that is used for peeling logs.  Every board had to be measured separately since the house is in every way uneven and unlevel.  From one end to another there is a 2 feet difference. It was a good thing we completed the job when we did because the week we finished Dixon had more rain at on time then it had in 80 years.  The arroyos were flooded which meant several roads were blocked too.  At the time we couldn't afford to roof it, so we picked up some old roofing that a friend gave us and used the old flooring for the running boards.  Later on we got the whole house including the portal re-roofed with new roofing and gutters, so we then bought ruff cut lumber to do solid running boards underneath and were able to put down roofing paper etc..